The present invention pertains to an apparatus for debagging bottles and feeding them into a production stream.
In the production of bottled goods, the bottles are often purchased in bagged lots which must be opened and fed seriatim into the production stream. A bagged lot is typically formed as a single layer of bottles which are arranged into a square or rectangular matrix. The grouped bottles are encased into a plastic bag, the open end of which has been closed by heat sealing or the like. The closing of the bag creates a sealed flap on one end.
Heretofore, the opening and feeding of the bagged lots of bottles has been conducted in labor intensive and inefficient ways. Generally, the bags have been opened by holding the flap and manually cutting the bags with a knife. Thereafter, the operator manually pulls the bag away from the array of bottles. As can be appreciated, the manual slicing of the bags is a slow and tedious task. Moreover, the operation poses not only a personal hazard to the worker, but also a risk of damaging the bottles.
Once the bottles have been removed from their bag, they are uniformly fed into the production stream. Typically the bottles are maintained in their rectangular array and successively advanced onto the production conveyor a row at a time. The feeding operation has primarily been accomplished through the use of a continuously moving conveyor belt or an indexing feeding mechanism.
In a conveyor feed system, the array of bottles is supported on a continuously moving horizontal feed belt. At all times, each of the bottles is urged toward the laterally driven production belt which directs the bottles into the production stream. Hence, as each row is removed by the production belt the next row is automatically moved forward for removal. However, during the remainder of the time the bottles are required to slide relative to the moving feed belt. Although, larger bottles may be adequately fed by this method, the smaller, less stable bottles have a tendency of tipping over and blocking the feeding process.
In an indexing feeding system, the bottles are supported on a feed table and advanced toward the production belt by a pusher member. The operation is controlled by a series of sensors which are mounted in the bed of the feed table at spaced intervals corresponding to the successive rows of bottles. By supporting the bottles on a flat, stationary table and containing the rear row of bottles with the pusher member, the blocking tendencies of the belt feeding arrangement are alleviated. However, because the operation is controlled by a series of sensors fixed to the feed table, it lacks versatility. In particular, these feeding mechanisms are specifically set up for a certain size bottle. The sensors must all be carefully moved and re-set to facilitate a change in the feeding of differently sized bottles. As can be readily appreciated, this task not only requires the time of a trained workman, but also results in a substantial amount of down time for the feeding mechanism.